Abstract
A new steering angle sensor which is composed of a 3-turn angular potentiometer and an encoder has been developed. The 3-turn angular potentiometer includes a spiral carbon film, the width of which varies with the steering angle and produces an analog signal that is directly proportional to the steering angle over the range of -540° to +540°. The encoder has 75 slits on the rotating disc which is a part of the 3-turn angular potentiometer. It produces 3-phase pulses which have resolutions of 1.2° for the steering angle and which are useful for control systems. When a failure occurs at the sensor, it can be detected directly by comparing the steering angle values of the 3-turn angular potentiometer and the encoder.